lundi 23 juillet 2012

Syrian Turkmens seek refuge in Turkey

YAYLADAG, Turkey — The border was less
than an hour’s walk from their villages, but they slowly crawled for two days
in the broiling heat across the steep mountains.

They said they feared for their lives
all the way.

Terrified by widespread bombing
unleashed by government forces, Syrian Turkmen from several villages picked up
and fled several days ago. They formed a long weary line of more than 2,500
souls.

“They arrived hungry and sick. They
didn’t have food or medicine or clothes or even water,” said Dr. Mohammed Sheik
Ibrahim, a Syrian Turkmen who fled to Turkey eight months ago. “They are like
people who are a little dead.”

As the tide of Syrian refugees has
swollen, Turkish officials have scrambled to find places for them, and Syrian
expatriate medical experts, who have rushed here to help, have become
increasingly worried about a largely civilian population suffering from the
wounds of an all-out war.

With 43,000 Syrian refugees in camps
spread across southeastern Turkey, a 75 percent increase in only a few months,
Turkish officials said they are rushing to open two more camps that can house
another 10,000 in each. Until this week, they had talked about opening only one
more camp.

They said the extra camps are needed
because about 1,000 Syrians a day are showing up at their border. Many more are
nearby but can’t travel because they fear encountering the Syrian army.

Across the region, the United Nations
High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said this week that the number of refugees
has tripled since April, reaching 110,000 at camps in Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and
Jordan. It added that the actual count is likely to be “significantly higher,”
since many refugees do not register with the UN or different governments
agencies.

UNHCR officials said their appeal for
international support, which would go toward UN agencies and nongovernmental
groups serving the Syrians, has received only 26 percent of the money sought.
Such a low response, UNHCR officials said in a news release, is causing a
“profound impact on the humanitarian support.”

Turkish officials likewise say the
response to their appeal for international support has been “negligible.”

Until two months ago, Turkey had said
it would bear nearly all the costs of caring for the refugees. It has also
relied on the UN for tents and other basic equipment.

“We are doing our best and we will
continue to do our best. If we don’t get help from others, we will continue to use
our national budget,” said Suphi Atan, a spokesman for the Turkish Foreign
Ministry. Turkey has spent $200 million on the refugees so far, he added.

Once registered as refugees, the Syrian
get full access to Turkish hospitals. But many have wounds that stretch the
capabilities of the government hospitals.

That’s where Syrian expatriate
physicians have stepped in.

They have set up special clinics,
brought in costly medicines or transferred the wounded to private hospitals for
more specialized care at their expense.

At one special clinic set up in Antakya
by the Syrians, Dr. Hasan Najjar, an elderly Syrian physician who lives in
Germany, recalled his surprise at the level of injuries suffered by the
refugees.

“I’ve been a doctor for 55 years and in
all of my life I’ve never seen these kinds of injuries. Some bones are so
shattered they can’t be replaced. We have to buy bones and it costs $10,000 for
10 grams of bone,” he said.

Equally difficult, he said, is treating
victims who suffer extensive phosphorous burns that they apparently suffered in
bombings.

Among the Syrian physicians, the only
psychiatrist is Moustafa, who asked that his last name not be used. He arrived
here only a few days ago from the UK and has since rushed from camp to camp
counseling refugees.

“There is almost no psychiatric
support,” he said taking a break between long trips to the refugee camps
sprawled across southeastern Turkey. “There’s only me,” he added.

“They suffer all degrees of problems
from panic attacks to depression to post traumatic shock,” he said.

Indeed, he worries about the
long-lasting emotional problems. “Often these are the kinds of problems that
don’t respond well to treatment.”

In one camp he briefly counseled a man
who was fleeing with his 7-month pregnant wife when Syrian gunfire hit their
car, killing his wife and the driver. In another he met with a 15-year-old who
was shot in both legs by Syrian forces as they left his home after searching
it.

“What really strikes me is the
randomness of the killing,” he said. “I ask them, ‘Were you actually fighting?’
and most of them said ‘No.’"

When the Turkmen villagers arrived at
the border, the Turks opened a brand new camp for them here in Yayladag, a
small town that looks up at Syrian towns surrounding them. The Turks had no
choice. There was no room in the other camps closer to the border.

“They are mostly old people and women
and children. The young men stayed behind to fight,” said Cihan Mullah Ahmet,
the head of the local Turkmen association here. “The children cry all the time
about the bombs and the old people just cry.”

The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting supported the reporting for
this story.